In Chile, for example, former army commander in chief, Juan Emilio Cheyre, deservedly gained much attention in 2004 when he took institutional responsibility for human rights abuses committed during the dictatorship, but still stopped short of admitting that it had been state policy. McSherry reveals the inner workings of an international institution, composed in turn of different national intelligence agencies, that was organised, financed and directed by state authorities, including in the United States. There may never be a ‘smoking gun’, as orders were given verbally and many documents destroyed, but research like McSherry’s demonstrates con- vincingly that deniability is no longer plausible. In detail, with 100 or more endnotes per chapter, McSherry examines case studies of assassination and torture committed by these parallel states: how they were planned, who planned them, who carried them out, how they were carried out, who knew about them, and how the international connections were forged and main- tained. Also prominent is the role of the US government itself in promoting the work of Operation Condor, knowing full well what its operations entailed. Documents from the CIA routinely referred blandly to ‘missions’ and ‘activities’ that included kidnapping and assassination around the world. An important issue left unexplored is the legacy of parallel state structures across the region. The intelligence agencies of that era were officially dismantled, but a number of militaries in the region continue to enjoy wide latitude regarding espionage activities, which are not necessarily overseen by elected civilian authorities and at times still generate controversy. In addition, parallel state structures have emerged in times of political upheaval, such as in Peru under Alberto Fujimori or in Colombia. McSherry’s analysis should be viewed not only as a discussion of the past, but also as a cautionary tale for the present and future. GREGORY WEEKS University of North Carolina at Charlotte J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008). doi:10.1017/S0022216X07003823 Fiona Macaulay, Gender Politics in Brazil and Chile: The Role of Parties in National and Local Policymaking (Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan, in association with St. Antony’s College, Oxford, 2006), pp. xvi+231, £50.00, hb. While academic work on the effects of gender quotas on Latin American politics has proliferated in recent years, there is less analysis of the more subtle ways in which women’s demands are communicated and represented in the region’s traditionally male-dominated political systems. Fiona Macaulay’s excellent study goes a long way in beginning to fill that gap. In particular, this is one of the first comprehensive studies of the intersection between feminism and political parties and how the complex puzzle of electoral systems, federalism, and the internal structures and traditions of political parties either advance or inhibit the advancement of a progressive women’s agenda. Macaulay analyses the distinct ways that party systems and political parties have filtered women’s demands for political representation and how these demands affect state gender policies. In her comparative case studies of Brazil and Chile, Macaulay identifies three independent variables that affect women’s voz y voto (voice and vote) within political parties and the political system as a whole, as well as ‘the formation and implementation of state gender policy ’ (p. 172). These include the existence of a secular-religious cleavage that cuts across the economic one; the nature and quality Reviews 165